The Volunteers Register 2017 is now open.
Speed Week cannot run without the army of volunteers who help set up and run the event. Volunteering is open to anyone, members and non-members alike and can be a great way to get close to the action.
Some jobs require specific experience and knowledge but many others do not, there is a job there just ideal for you.

Just follow the link, select the day you want to work, tick the box of the job you want to do, provide some contact details and you're good to go.

For those that have previously volunteered in 2016 you have to nominate again for 2017.

I happened to run into Tom Banks at the Willowbank Nostalgia Drags the other week and, unsurprisingly, we were discussing how to further improve Speedweek for 2018. He complained that it is very hard to get enough volunteers to achieve what we need. I find that hard to imagine. Every entrant MUST provide one volunteer for one half day shift. That's already in the rules. We had about 180 entrants this year and I'll bet we didn't have 180 volunteers. Because this has yet to be ruthlessly enforced some lazy bastards don't do it at all.

I think it is high time we got serious about this. In 2018 and for evermore I think every competitor should have to do one volunteer shift themselves and do it well. If they don't do their fair share any new record they may have set becomes null and void. And they do a double shift the next year before they get their first run. If nothing else it would shorten the queues on Monday. If they don't come next year that double shift kicks in when they do. If they never come back they're no loss. They should also provide one of their crew as a second volunteer by Wednesday at the latest. This will give us more than enough people to run the show properly. How do I define "properly"? Simple, every job done well all week. I was thinking that the entry fee should be increased to cover a refundable deposit that we keep if they don't volunteer but that would just create even more work for Carol.

One of the reasons I have resigned as a starter is the damage the exposure is doing to my health. Standing out in the sun all week is literally risking my life. If we had more volunteers those nine shifts I've done every year for the last five years could easily be shared between nine people. Even as few as two could manage, with one doing the morning shifts and the other doing afternoons.

I've suggested this in the past but it's worth repeating. We need a dedicated coordinator of volunteers. Someone with not an ounce of kindness in them, someone who will not tolerate any disobedience, someone who delights in deleting records. I know Gary Satara has tried to include it in with his other duties but he's just not mean enough! I am, I think I'm really starting to enjoy being a grumpy old man! If I could be sure that I was coming back in 2018 I'd put my hand up now. Between me, my brother and my friends Bruce Willmot and Peter Hulbert in the timing van we have done 126 half day shifts and that doesn't include setup on Saturday and Sunday every year and the months that Hulbert has spent at home designing and building the enhancements to the timing and reporting systems. And we've never raced on the salt. 126 shifts puts us in credit until 2143, by which time I'll be 189 years old and probably not coming to Speedweek as much as I used to.

Hey David ...... It works both ways , for the first time ever I came this year with a crew ( sadly no vehicle) I registered myself and 2 crew members on the volunteers list pre race. Sunday entries/memberships & fees and Monday morning track 1 starter assistants , we arrived Saturday and after setting up camp went to the pits .... after hearing that Ross Brown was not available at bike scrutineering I personally approached Graham Hadley and offered my assistance on both Saturday and Sunday and was told I was NOT required. On Sunday we attended the registration van and spoke to Carol about doing our volunteer shift and was told we were NOT needed and if we were we would be summoned, I again sort to assist Graham in bike scrut and was told I was NOT needed. Monday morning we fronted at track one for assistant starter duty and were told ( by your brother) there was enough help and to come back later , we came back in the after noon and again were told we were NOT needed , but to stay around and see what the other assistant starters were doing. I followed the rules to the letter and bent over backwards to honour my and the crews commitments, were we the only crews to experience this?.
Yes agree that a dedicated coordinator would be beneficial or alternatively hand the whole running of the event over to paid professionals and wear the extra cost thereof ?
If you want to talk about credits I was the chief bike scrut from 2003 to 2010 and did not get to race very much as well.
cheers
ex bike scrut Gary.

Thanks for your comments. Ironically, Bob Ellis was complaining that he didn't have enough help scrutineering the cars. I think that's the sort of thing that a volunteer coordinator would help improve. And why did Tom Banks say we didn't have enough volunteers? Maybe he knew of gaps that weren't obvious to the rest of us. I remember looking at the volunteers register as the event got closer and I was concerned that there were far too many blank spots on Track 2. And yet, I had enough people turn up anyway.

I think the new start line position of "Wrangler" is a good idea. This would have a person simply directing traffic; support vehicles in one lane and competitors alongside. Everyone would have to start from the start line, as we have done in previous years, and with the Pre-Stage system to control numbers better it would all work well.

Greg Wapling had us taking photos of each competitor's number this year so that he had a record of who was on what vehicle at what time so that records were attributed to the right person. This was a good idea and is a job that a volunteer could do. So each start line could be run by three people. Extra volunteers could hover and learn how to do the jobs if they were needed. Or go get more water for us, I ran out not long after someone found my esky and drank all my water one day!

I haven't given up on Speedweek completely, if Peter Hulbert has his bike ready for 2018 I'll be back and will probably be a wrangler on Monday morning.
And thank you for your years of service too.

Thinking more about your volunteering experience, Gary, has got me pondering (again ) the notion of a third track. People usually howl this down with claims that we don't have enough volunteers, but it sounds like that isn't actually the case after all. I'm just thinking out loud here and this is far from a complete or perfect proposal, merely a start to a discussion. No flaming from anyone, please.

My timing van friends tell me there really aren't any spares from the existing equipment so that would mean the third track would be GPS only. We have a dozen units and eight of them actually work. I'm thinking the track would be useful for cars and bikes that are not fast. Perhaps something like this; this year when Track 2 was GPS only we essentially ran it ourselves. One volunteer had a pair of binoculars and watched every competitor all the way until they reached the All Clear Point. Then we sent the next one down. We didn't need the call from Southern Rescue because we could see the whole track. We also had the doctors running their Hi-Vizz Escort so we were well covered for any medical emergency.

There are plans afoot to make better use of the vast salt area in future, we can't keep using the same surveyed points and just putting up with the weather when it spoils things for us. I was looking longingly at the huge distance behind us at the start line and wondering why we weren't using it to reclaim some of the distance we needed to run a proper Track 2 with real TAG-Heuer timing. Norm Bradshaw was thinking the same thing and drove down for a look. He reported excellent salt for at least two kilometres. That would have been more than enough to run the full Track 2. On Thursday I was getting people to start back about 300 metres before the start line just to see what difference it made. Some bikes were crossing the original start line in third gear and picked up about 3 or 4 mph. The salt was perfect so there were no stability issues. I won't even begin to consider comments about how it was "too dangerous, everyone could have been killed". That's just BS, everyone there could see it worked very well.

So if we were to extend both the track start lines back as far as the salt was good we could add some versatility. The Track 3 start line could back onto the Track 2 start line and run south. It doesn't need to be long, with Track 2 only two miles long in total this year we still got some good speeds. A couple of bikes even qualified for the long course and one of the American Camaros (I think it was Jack driving) went 164 mph and still managed to pull it up safely. We could use two miles again or even less if we had to, just to keep the track running. Competitors on T3 could qualify to run on the short course if they managed 100 mph and by Wednesday they could all graduate to T2 to start getting official speeds. On Friday everybody runs T1 until it's all over. The other benefit of having T3 is that it is a great test and tune opportunity. The Hi-Vizz boys had maxxed out the Escort and then went back to change the cam. They came back and did a few more runs and they learned a lot. T3 has real value as the wait time is measured in single minutes, not hours.

If T2 got soggy at the far end we could shift things around and still keep going if more timing points were surveyed. T3 would only need three people to run it well.

I just got a PM from a long time member who was in favour of the priority line. As it stands, I am vehemently opposed to it, but he got me thinking about other possibilities. His idea was to have the Priority Line (aka PL) for cars and bikes faster than 225 mph, of which there were about ten. In my previous posts I have mentioned moving the tracks to where the good salt is. All it would need is some fresh thinking and more surveyors time and pegs. With the PL being part of Track 1 (T1) it is a pain for everyone and adds no value. If we surveyed and scraped more tracks we could have the nine mile course for the 225+ people, the existing T1 a mile or so shorter for people between 150/175 and 225, the existing short course (T2) as it is and my previously mentioned T3 as a two mile GPS course for vehicles under 100 mph. If we adjusted that 225 down a bit to include more T1 vehicles we would have a very good spread of competitors over all four courses. This will mean a lot more runs and much less waiting for everyone.

T1 and T4 start lines would be together, both controlled by one starter and as far south as possible and be divergent at an appropriate angle. T2 and T3 would be one straight line five miles long and at a safe distance from the other two tracks. All four tracks would be surveyed and pegged longer than we need them so that any of them could be moved north or south as the weather required.

Another option would be to make T2 longer and with one more set of timing beams to spread the load a bit more equitably. As the demand for T2 dwindles by Thuesday to almost a handful of competitors we could make T2 and T3 another long course

Return roads could be easily managed if T1 was closest to the pits and T4 was a bit further west. T4 would go the furthest so its return road would be further north than the T1 turnoff. The starter would not send any more vehicles until Northern Rescue gave the normal all clear for both those tracks. Return road for T2 would be the same as now and the T3 return road would be west of and parallel to T3 and would return competitors to the T2/T3 start line.

Hey David ...... It works both ways , for the first time ever I came this year with a crew ( sadly no vehicle) I registered myself and 2 crew members on the volunteers list pre race. Sunday entries/memberships & fees and Monday morning track 1 starter assistants , we arrived Saturday and after setting up camp went to the pits .... after hearing that Ross Brown was not available at bike scrutineering I personally approached Graham Hadley and offered my assistance on both Saturday and Sunday and was told I was NOT required. On Sunday we attended the registration van and spoke to Carol about doing our volunteer shift and was told we were NOT needed and if we were we would be summoned, I again sort to assist Graham in bike scrut and was told I was NOT needed. Monday morning we fronted at track one for assistant starter duty and were told ( by your brother) there was enough help and to come back later , we came back in the after noon and again were told we were NOT needed , but to stay around and see what the other assistant starters were doing. I followed the rules to the letter and bent over backwards to honour my and the crews commitments, were we the only crews to experience this?.
Yes agree that a dedicated coordinator would be beneficial or alternatively hand the whole running of the event over to paid professionals and wear the extra cost thereof ?
If you want to talk about credits I was the chief bike scrut from 2003 to 2010 and did not get to race very much as well.
cheers
ex bike scrut Gary.

Hi Gary
Sorry that you were NOT required
I had a full crew of volenteers and with the limited space we had for motorcycle tech we were already tripping over each other
In recent years we have used Ross Brown's tent as both motorcycle inspection and impound for PP class bikes
Motorcycle inspection is one of the things that gets plenty of volenteers, and I guess it's mainly due to it being held before the meeting starts
I'm looking forward to getting my Lakester on the salt next year, and we'll see how it fits in with all the other stuff I am doing
G